


Analemma

by Jaina (effervescible)



Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: Enemies to Friends, Extra Treat, Friendship, Gen, How Lea Became Kairi's #1 Fan, Mid-Canon, POV Multiple, Trick or Treat: Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:05:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27180122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/effervescible/pseuds/Jaina
Summary: Establishing trust and friendship is a process, not instantaneous, when it's with an ex-kidnapper ex-jerk ex-Nobody. Snapshots of Kairi and Lea as they train together and learn more about what the other is fighting for.
Relationships: Axel & Kairi (Kingdom Hearts), Kairi & Lea (Kingdom Hearts)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 9
Collections: Trick or Treat Exchange 2020





	Analemma

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TereziMakara](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TereziMakara/gifts).



This is a mistake. For a while Kairi tell herself it isn't, because she trusts Riku and Master Yen Sid absolutely radiates wisdom, but none of that stops her stomach from dropping when her co-trainee arrives at the tower and she looks up and _up_ (seriously, who gave him the right to be so tall?) and sees the familiar black coat and flaming red hair of the man who once kidnapped her. If he's really human again and not a Nobody, it hasn't changed his appearance much.

She's not afraid of him. She's _not_. She'll punch him in the stomach if she needs to — or she'll hit him with her Keyblade, since that's what they're supposed to be doing anyway. But if they're going to be training partners, which means they're also supposed to trust each other, so step one of becoming a full-fledged wielder is already pretty wobbly.

What does he make of their situation? She has a long moment to wonder before Lea inclines his head in what's practically a _bow_ and wow, that's not what she was expecting at all.

"Kairi, I owe you a big apology," he says. "I'm sorry for what I did to you before. I'm _really, really_ sorry."

"...okay," she says. What else can she say? Probably a lot, but nothing is coming to her now.

Thankfully, Yen Sid steps in just then to open the portal to their training ground, and she's able to relax a little. This probably _is_ a mistake, but it's also a step forward. If it means she'll no longer be standing still, waiting for her best friends and worrying the whole time, she can live with a few mistakes.

\--

This was not his best idea ever. It wasn't the worst, either, but that's such a low bar it would take effort and a shovel to reach it. Technically, it wasn't _his_ idea, but Lea agreed to it so he figures it's close enough. Oh, sure, it all makes sense on paper. The two of them are the newest Keyblade wielders, so green they must look like summer grass, and the others are busy doing stuff to prepare for Xehanort's return, so of course he and Kairi should train together until it's time for them all to gather together and show the old man what's what. Makes sense.

She doesn't trust him, is the thing. He can hardly blame her for that, but even if he's new to the Keyblade, he's not new to fighting, and he can see the mistrust in her movements. There's always the tiniest bit of hesitation, something she's holding in reserve in case she has to defend herself against him — _really_ defend herself, not just in a spar.

Caution is another thing that looks good on paper but doesn't always work out so well in reality. He knows firsthand how powerful Xemnas was. If his ex-boss's original self was half as tough, they're all going to need an edge in the battles to come. Kairi doesn't need to be reckless, but she absolutely needs to be trying to kick Lea's ass.

Okay, so maybe he's not the right one to be her training partner, he thinks to himself an hour into a session as he presses the attack. That's a problem. A bigger one is that he can't think of anyone better suited to the position who's actually available. Except for the wizard, in theory, since he's always around, but he never seems to get up from his desk.

Maybe this was a mistake all around. Lea doesn't doubt that Sora is better suited to leading the charge against Xehanort and his minions of darkness — he's done it twice now, after all — but some part of him hates being here, away from the action, starting his training from scratch like when he was a dumb kid with frisbees.

But every time he finds himself wavering on the edge of indecision and stepping away from this insulated, isolated training ground, he remembers the last time he saw Roxas' face. _Really_ saw it in real life, not in a dream or some kind of heart-to-heart connection. Roxas remembered everything, finally, he'd realized. But it wasn't enough. His best friend had to see whatever journey he was on through, and he had to let go.

_Let's meet again, in the next life._

_Yeah. I'll be waiting._

_Silly. Just because you have a next life…_

'....doesn't mean I will,' he'd thought. Except here he is. He got a next life, and Roxas didn't, not in a way that really counts. And if ripping Sora's heart away to set Roxas free is no longer an option, then taking up the Keyblade to find another way seems to be the only choice left to him, even if he doesn't know how it's going to happen. He's just going to have to believe, and put one foot in front of the other. What was it the wizard had said? Something about hearts being guiding keys? Well, he's got both now.

Lea is suddenly reminded that he's not the only one when a hard strike from Kairi slams into his gut, knocking the wind out of him, knocking his Keyblade out of his hand and knocking him on his ass. It doesn't hurt all that much, but it absolutely surprises him enough that he can only stare up at her, his dignity forfeit.

Kairi is, unsurprisingly, grinning smugly. "Gotcha."

"Yeah, you did," he says, ruefully and a little admiringly. What was he just thinking about her needing an edge? Maybe he should think again. He brushes himself off before reaching a hand out. "Help me up, we'll go again?"

From where she's standing, she could easily give him a boost, or she could kick him, or she could walk away and leave him to get up on his own. It's up to her. Lea can't say which is most likely. Judging by the look on her face, neither is she, for a moment that stretches out for longer than the seconds it contains — and then she takes his hand with a surprisingly strong grip and pulls him up.

She drops it the instant he's on his feet again. Still, he feels like something has shifted.

"You ready?" she asks, something strange but determined in her expression.

"Yeah," he says, and calls his weapon back to his hand. "I am."

\--

A strange thing about training in a timeless pocket world is that no one and nothing inside it ages or changes. Which is implied by the "timeless" part, Kairi knows, but she didn't expect it to mean her fingernails stay cracked and broken from the knocks they've taken. She hasn't given them any thought at all up to now, really, but when she brushed her hair over her shoulder at the start of a break, a ragged nail tip snagged in her hair and caught her attention.

As she inspects them, she thinks that Selphie would be appalled; they had a few sleepovers during the year that Sora faded from her memory, and the other girl had always liked giving them manicures. Nail care hadn't really been Kairi's thing, but she'd enjoyed it well enough. It was nice to feel pretty.

Now, though, she looks at the chips and rough edges on all ten fingernails and smiles. It's not how they look but what they stand for that matters. Her awful-looking nails are the only physical proof she has of what they're doing here. She can look at them and think, _see? I'm making an effort. I'm doing my part too. I won't be left behind again._

Maybe no one else would get it, but it's proof enough for her, and that's what matters.

"Yo, look sharp!" 

She turns just in time to catch the paper sack that's been tossed her way.

"Nice reflexes," Lea says, looking pleased for some reason. "See, you're getting the vibe for combat already."

She huffs a little laugh. "Yeah, I'll be able to watch your back if they attack it with lunch."

He just chuckles and opens his own sack lunch as he settles down in what's quietly been designated as their break area — it's the spot with the best view. 

They're not friends, exactly, but these last few days (weeks, maybe? She's completely lost track of how much non-time has gone by here), Kairi's found they've been able to laugh together, at least a little. Her guard isn't fully down, but Lea keeps apologizing and goes back to the tower to get the meals the magic brooms make for them, and he hasn't threatened her once outside of the practice sessions where that's his job. She doesn't dislike him as much anymore; she maybe even likes him a little bit.

It helps that she can still remember, with _crystal_ clarity, the look on his face when she knocked him flat.

Maybe they'll become actual friends, maybe not. In the meantime... lunch. She wrinkles her nose when she sees today's selection.

"Not a fan of sandwiches?" Lea asks when he notices. He's already halfway through his — he's so skinny, where does he even put all the food he wolfs down?

"Not a fan of tuna fish," she says, but takes a bite anyway. This isn't a restaurant, and the sandwiches aren't meant to be gourmet meals, they're fuel. "There are so many better fish recipes than tuna sandwiches."

"Yeah, I guess you islanders would know." He laughs again and she almost tells him that's exactly right, almost lists some of her foster father's best fish dishes, but she doesn't. It doesn't feel quite right to fall into easy banter like that. Not yet.

Instead she focuses on her food. Sandwich, apple, jug of water. It doesn't take that long to eat, but Lea still finishes before her, like always, and he spends the rest of their break looking out across the sky, like always. She couldn't begin to guess what he's thinking about.

Every so often he glances her way, and when she tucks her apple core away into the bag, he shifts, most likely to ask if she's ready to start again or wants to rest a while longer.

She beats him to the talking. "Did you really sacrifice yourself for Sora?"

For a few seconds, Lea just stares. All right, it was kind of an abrupt question, but she doesn't know any way of easing into it, and it's been on her mind for a while. "What?"

"Back when I was stuck in your old gang's castle jail, when he was coming to find me and Riku," she says. "Nobodies and Heartless have to be destroyed for the original person to come back, right? Is that how it happened for you?"

He's quiet for another long moment, and she thinks he might not plan to give her an answer until he lets out a sigh. "Yes and no," he said. "It was him and me against pretty much endless Dusks, and I gave it all I had to take them out so Sora could keep going. Didn't leave anything left for me." He doesn't sound that bothered by recalling his own death. Maybe it helps that it hadn't stuck. "I didn't want to see the kid go down that way. But I'd be lying if I said I did it just for him."

"It was for Roxas," she says. "You wanted to save him, too."

He nods. "I wasn't going to get him back like I remembered him, I knew that by then," he says. "Keeping him, and Sora, safe was the only good thing I could still do for my best friend."

The way he says that, her heart can't help but ache. "What was he like?" she asks.

For a moment, he looks like he's somehow far away, but then his expression softens. "Roxas? Different from Sora in a lot of ways," he says. "Quieter, most of the time, except when he decided it was time to pepper me with questions. He was easy to talk to, though, so that worked out. Of all thirteen of us, he was the only one I ever _wanted_ to talk to." 

Kairi is fascinated. Not just by his description of Roxas, another version of Sora that none of them ever really got to know, but also by the fond smile on Lea's face. She's never seen him like this in the time that they've been training, and she has to wonder — is this the real him, underneath all the brashness and the bluster?

"He's stubborn, too. Guess that's something the two of them have in common," Lea continues, apparently not noticing either her fascination or that he's slipped into the present tense. "When he gets an idea in his head, there's no stopping him. Not even when he decided to leave." He goes quiet after that. 

"He sounds like someone worth knowing," Kairi says, and means it. Not just because of Lea's description, and not just because he was a part of Sora. Her heart tells her it's true. She wishes they could have talked to him more than as briefly as she did.

"He is," Lea says. "He deserves better than what he got. From any of us." A mixture of emotions passes over his face, something like sad and mad and guilty all rolled together, and then he seems to tuck those feelings away. When he turns to look at her, though, regret is still there. "I really am sorry, you know."

"I know," she says. "I forgive you."

And she does.

\--

They've settled into a routine and it feels productive — no more walking on eggshells around each other, which is good because those eggs would get absolutely smashed when the time came to really fight.

Lea will never say it out loud, because the last thing either of them need is doubt, but he does wonder if it's going to be enough in the end. Once upon a time, he was terrified (or the closest non-emotional equivalent) of Xemnas turning him into a Dusk. Now he's getting ready to stand up to the 100 percent real deal Xehanort? Sure, he won't be alone, but he doesn't want to be the weak link on the team, and it's a fact that his Keyblade-wielding skills are the newest and greenest.

He wonders whether Kairi frets about the same thing. If she does, it doesn't show; this far into their training, she's just as eager to clobber him as she was on day one. He doesn't mind. He kind of appreciates it, actually, both as a future co-combatant and because he probably still has it coming. She keeps telling him to stop apologizing, but it's still a debt owed.

The clobbering doesn't stop them from having actual conversations, and he appreciates that too. She's easy to talk to, like Roxas, but different in other ways. Something about it nags at him, like it _should_ be triggering deja vu but isn't quite getting it done, and his mind goes blank for a few seconds while he tries to work out what he's even thinking. She's caught him at it a couple of times, but doesn't make fun of him for the mystery blankness, which is far too nice of her. Must be a princess of heart thing.

Outside of those weird blank moments, he's come to enjoy their breaks. Sometimes he gives her extra combat tips to try during their next session, gained from ten years of working with some seriously bad guys who weren't afraid to fight dirty; sometimes she gives him the same, gained from a lifetime of playing games with friends that were taller and faster than her. (Even the most vicious game of island tag doesn't count as a real fight, but they're surprisingly helpful anyway.) And sometimes they just talk, and ask each other questions.

"Something I've been wondering about for a while," he says one afternoon, finishing up the rest of his sandwich and balling up his lunch bag. "Kairi, do you ever feel Namine?"

She rests her hand on her chest and considers the question. "I'm not sure," she says after a moment. "Sometimes I think I can, if I feel something I didn't expect to, or an idea pops into my head out of nowhere. But how do I know the difference between that and just growing and changing?"

He wishes he had an answer for that one. "Not sure you can," he says. "There are things I said and did as Axel that I never would have as Lea, but I was one of them, then the other, then the first one again. There was never a time I was two people at once, unless you count right now."

Which is a thought that's occurred to him more than once, usually in the middle of the night when such thoughts are the least welcome. If he's able to get Roxas back, and to shake some sense back into Isa, will he be too much or not enough of the person they once called best friend?

"That's the thing. I don't think I am, but I can't be sure," Kairi says. "It's different for Sora — he met Roxas in his dreams, and he's been to places Roxas cares about, and he says it's easy to tell when he feels feelings that aren't his. The two of them are together, but they're not the same. He's just keeping Roxas safe until they can both live again." Her eyes cloud over. "What if that didn't happen for me and Namine? What if I absorbed her when she returned to me, and she's just gone?"

Something turns over in his stomach uncomfortably. That worry isn't unfamiliar to him, but it's mostly been laid to rest by now. Mostly. "If it didn't happen for Sora and Roxas, no reason to think it'll happen for you and Namine," he points out. "Besides, she knew me. Feel anything about me that's definitely not from your heart?"

"Really?" She looks up at him. "But I thought she wasn't part of Organization XIII."

"She wasn't," he says. "But she was its tool, for a while. I helped her out of that jam, but I'd be lying if I said I did it out of the goodness of my heart." Ha. "And later on we helped each other. She was stronger than she thought. Maybe she got that from you."

"Maybe," Kairi says. "Or maybe that was just her." She smiles. "It's strange to think about a whole other person coming from me. At first I thought that made it sound like she was my daughter or something. Then I thought about the short time we spent together and she felt more like a sister. And now, I think I'd just like to know her as a friend. Does that make sense?"

The uncomfortable sensation in his midsection has eased, but there must still be something moving around inside, because now it feels like there's a lump in his throat. "Perfect sense," he says.

"I want to ask you more about what she was like, but I won't," she says. "Because that means I have to find a way to set her heart free, so I can find out myself."

This conversation has nothing to do with fighting, but Lea finds himself even more sure that he'll be the weakest member of their little team when the time comes to face Xehanort. Because looking at Kairi now, he sees nothing but strength.

"You will," he says. After a moment, he stands, and reaches a hand out to help her up. "You ready to get back to work?"

She blinks and looks up at him, and for a split second it feels like they're somewhere far away, where the angle of the sun is different and they're on a sandy beach, not in a forest clearing. Then the moment passes, and she takes his hand, and they're both smiling.

"Let's go," she says.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Trick or Treat! Kairi and Axelea's friendship/battle partnership was one of my favorite grace notes in KH3 so I really enjoyed the idea of exploring some of what might have happened before their first cutscene together.


End file.
